Tasting Table Best College Food by StateOhio: Bagel & Deli ShopMiami University; Oxford, OHThere's barely an inch of blank wall space here, thanks to the quirky framed posters that advertise the more than 90 steamed bagel sandwiches. One favorite is the Crunch 'N Munch, a turkey number with smoked cheddar, honey mustard, Parmesan peppercorn ranch dressing and nacho Doritos. There's also the Messy Katie, with which you'll get cream cheese, avocado, Colby and honey mustard all over your face, but it'll be more than worth it.​

​30 BEST COLLEGE TOWN SANDWICH SHOPS AND PIZZA JOINTSBAGEL & DELI SHOP, OXFORD, OHIOA favorite attraction ins uptown Oxford, the Bagel & Deli is home of delicious food since 1975. This place needs no introduction or advertisement as it is an established, world-renowned place to get fresh, steamed bagel sandwiches and subs. It is very popular among students Miami University as it is located half a block from the campus. B&D carries over 90 creatively named specialty sandwiches. Among the crowd favorites are the Crunch ‘N Munch which is a turkey sandwich with smoked cheddar, honey mustard, drizzled with Parmesan peppercorn ranch dressing and a helping of nacho Doritos.

Epic Cheese Pull: How Taco Bell Nailed Its Innovative New QuesalupaAfter debuting the Quesalupa in a Super Bowl ad, Taco Bell is continuing its quest to become fast food’s most-craveable company.Ripe for reconstruction: Relentlessly rethinking its menu is in Taco Bell’s DNA. [PHOTOS: SARAH ILLENBERGER] BY JONATHAN RINGENLONG READOn a recent evening, Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol was hanging out at his Newport Beach, California, home when an idea popped into his head—a menu item designed to appeal to young, ravenously hungry customers on their way home after a night of partying. Niccol, 42, was thinking about his days as an engineering student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he had a favorite lunch spot with a simple gimmick. “We went to this place called Bagel & Deli that had all these great names for their sandwiches,” he says, sitting on a sofa in his large, comfortable corner office at Taco Bell’s Irvine, California, headquarters. “I was like, ‘Why haven’t we thought of having great names for our burritos?’ ” (Taco Bell’s current offerings tend to have monikers like “Shredded Chicken Burrito” or “Beefy 5-Layer Burrito.”) He fired off a text to Taco Bell’s chief food innovation officer, Liz Matthews, that included a name borrowed from Bagel & Deli: “the After Burner.” Niccol didn’t give many further instructions. Whatever those two words might conjure in the minds of Matthews and her crew of chefs and food scientists would be the starting point. “What’s in the burrito?” he says in his office a few days later. “I don’t know! Make it up.”From an outsider’s perspective, the After Burner seems like a less-than-ideal name; with Chipotle battling food-poisoning issues, you’d think a Mexican fast-food chain would avoid any suggestion that a burrito might cause burning in your, you know, after. And given how many ideas are constantly in play in the test kitchen, the odds of this particular flash of inspiration making it to your local Taco Bell are low. But whatever happens, there’s a strong chance that the process of thinking about it will have reaped real rewards. Because at Taco Bell, in a way that’s unique to its industry, wild ideas are the whole enchilada, and a large part of Niccol’s strategy is to create a structure that taps into as many as possible. “Sometimes people in my position get pleasure out of demonstrating they’re smarter than everybody,” says the CEO, who has a bit of a Don Draper–in-California vibe and is wearing a blue plaid sport coat, an open-collar shirt, dark-wash jeans, and expensive-looking loafers. “I don’t get any pleasure out of that. I get pleasure from coming across something that I hadn’t thought of, giving it a whirl, and seeing if it works.”​​Link to rest of the article... www.fastcompany.com/3056059/taco-bell-for-combining-corn-beans-meat-and-cheese-into-genius

​​

Touring Ohio Televison Show ClipFrom a Time Warner show featuring must see places in Oxford, Ohio

To anyone visiting Oxford on a weekend night, Bagel & Deli can resemble an angry mob: shouting insults and ready to loot the counter for its steamy treasures. But this mosh pit beckons students time and again from all walks of campus to enjoy Oxford's choice food.

The mastermind of this bagel craze is Ned Stephenson, Bagel & Deli owner since 1975. His vision of business and bagels has birthed a successful eatery that now boasts similar locations in Indianapolis, Chicago, I.L., Charlotte, N.C., and Moscow, I.N. Though based on their Oxford mother location, Bagel & Deli is not a franchise because Stephenson doesn't receive stipends from the locations.

"Bagel & Deli is a family of 1,500 people ranging in all professions from lawyers, to politicians, to journalists," Stephenson says. "It's worse to work here than to belong to any fraternity and sorority. The hazing of learning the menu [as an employee] is pretty tough. But the leadership skills and friendships taken away from here are invaluable."

With 30 to 40 workers employed to learn a daunting menu of 110 bagels with countless ingredients, Stephenson says he still has no problem finding workers who want to work in the fast-paced and stressful atmosphere. Stephenson said there is a year-end employee party that grants graduating seniors a specialized Bagel & Deli ring, cherished by those who earn it.

"It's the evolution and collaboration of employees that is constantly changing," Stephenson says.

The menu continues to grow he says, as students and alumni are willing to bid $300 to $400 dollars to name their own bagel. The décor of the shop bridges the generation gap, as Grateful Dead Bears dance across Look Afraid stickers. The ever-growing frames of bagel names obscure Time Magazine covers of eras past. Frames of random pictures include past Bagel & Deli employees cover the opposite wall, capturing funny stories of graduated students. One such picture is a clipping of a 1963 Stephenson showing off a Coca Cola project in which he won a prize for the Talawanda school district.

But the fervor that dominates the corner of Campus and High Streets with ravenous customers chowing down on their tinfoil-wrapped favorite was not always the case for Bagel & Deli. As an Oxford local and Talawanda High School graduate, Stephenson has had an edge on local savvy.

"In the fall of 1969 in my first year at college, I told my dad I wanted to quit school at Thanksgiving," Stephenson says.

He told his father that he wanted to start a deli. Though his father did not object, he said that unless Stephenson got a college degree, he would probably be carrying an M16 in the jungles of Vietnam within six months. Stephenson graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1975 with a degree in finance and real estate. He moved back to Oxford and started The Deli Sandwich Shop the same year.

"Bagels were an accident," Stephenson says. "I had never seen a bagel in my life before I started. But people would be standing in line at 11 a.m. when I opened to pay 35 cents for a bagel."

In 1979 Stephenson began using the steamers and kosher bagel combinations and it was then that many of his customers tried their first bagel.

Stephenson married his wife Bonnie in 1986, but he stock market crash of 1987 and the birth of his oldest daughter forced him to re-evaluate his business.

"In the fall in 1988, I fired everyone and started over," Stephenson says. A restaurant evaluator suggested he name his sandwiches like the Burger King Whopper and put up signs of specific sandwiches on the wall.

This recipe caused an 11-year increase in business for Stephenson that established the shop as the No. 1 business in Oxford, which it remains today.

Gary Franks, Ned's co-owner of Bagel & Deli since 1996, started working at the shop his junior year at Miami.

"It's just one of those things I fell into," Franks says. "I would have never pictured myself here now when I started working." Franks, 38, says he has no regrets and looks forward to living in Oxford to raise his two young children.

While the shop remains a disorderly drunken mess of college kids on weekend nights, the weekday hours reflect a different side of Uptown. Franks often brings in his kids while Oxford professionals and faculty drop in for a quick bagel and smear to start their day, as the shop is typically open from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. The long hours don't pose a problem for the owners because communication between them and the employees runs smoothly.

"Ned and I chat on the phone every morning, so I guess that's the top of the chain of command," Franks says. "But it's the dependable workers who really know what they are doing that keep business running."

Both owners manage the shop while juggling a full-time family life. Stephenson has three children, Jessie, 20, Sam, 17, and Beau, 14. Beau has been working as a bagel sandwich artist since he was 11, driven to make money over his sports-enthusiast brother and sister.

Stephenson says that being an entrepreneur is not a skill that can be taught. The golf enthusiast often plays with other local business owners to exchange ideas about trade.

"Entrepreneurship is not only about good ideas, but hard work. It's about living on the edge and taking the risk, with the idea of losing it all," Stephenson says.